Light modulators find applications in a variety of fields including projection displays for entertainment or training, printing, machine vision and so on. In particular, electrostatically actuated light modulators, otherwise known as electrostatic light valves in the field of microelectrical mechanical systems (MEMS), may be used to control the propagation of light beams and the intensity thereof in various optical systems.
In most conventional systems, the light valves are comprised of micromirrors whose surfaces are actuated between ON and OFF configurations using digital ON/OFF actuation voltages applied thereon. Generally, one of the ON or OFF configuration corresponds to a flat micromirror surface, a high quality of which being quite difficult to achieve and thus explaining the difficulty in creating high quality systems based on such conventional light valve technology.
Furthermore, most conventional systems must generally operate with digital actuation voltages that provide static ON and OFF positions. As a consequence, grey scale modulation levels potentially available through the application of analog actuation voltages are not available in these systems.
Also, some conventional modulators generally provide a response time which is too long for applications such as ultra-high resolution projection systems.
Recently, a novel light modulator termed Flexible Reflective Analog Modulator, hereinafter referred to as FRAM, has presented significant improvements over like modulators, namely in its ability to overcome some of the above and other drawbacks of conventional modulators. Consequently, the use and application of these FRAMs in various optical apparatuses and systems have yet to be addressed, opening the possibility for a whole new realm of innovations in the fields relying on the use of light modulators, namely relating to optical intensity modulators and image projectors constructed on such technologies.